Bank Feed and Rule for Loan (Amortization)

Good afternoon, @johnmgoing. 

It's great to see you back in the Community. I can provide you with some information to help you out with this rule. 

You can easily set up a rule that splits and adds the transaction to your register automatically. Don't worry. It's an easy process. 

Here's how: 

Setup Bank Rule

1. Go to the Banking tab on the left-hand side of the screen. 
2. Select the Rules portion of the page. 
3. Press New rule. 
4. Enter all the information needed and hit the Add a split hyperlink next to the "Category" box. 

       5. Scroll down and tap the Auto-add radio button. 

       6. When you're ready, hit Save. 

In addition, here's an article to help your business in the future with bank transactions: Categorize and match online bank transactions. 

Let me know if these steps help. I value you and the success of your business. If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. Have a good one!

I believe your situation is helpful if the principal and interest amounts never change; however, this loan has an amortization schedule that shows varying interest/principal payments each month (similar to what you would see with a mortgage).  My question is....using the instrcutions you list in your reply, how do I set up the amortization schedule so the principal and interest is correct each month when the rule is applied?

Thanks,

John

I can see the importance of being able to set this up with different principal amounts and interest using the bank rules, johnmgoing.

You can manually enter the amount instead every time you have a different principal amount and interest. Here's how to do it:

1. Click Banking on the left menu.
2. Go to the Banking tab, then select the transaction that you want to split.
3. Click Split, then enter the principal amount and interest. 
4. Click Apply and accept.

You'll also want to check out for any updates in our QuickBooks Blog. 

For reference, you can run reports in QuickBooks Online to get the information you need. 

Feel free to let us know if you have questions about entering your split transactions. Don't forget, we're here to further assist you.

To confirm and follow up, you're saying you need to manually update the split (which makes sense) every time, correct? That makes sense to me. 

Do you know if there are any third party apps that integrate with QBO where an amortization schedule of payments could be imported into QBO (so you could match the actual receipt of the payment in cash to the closing out of an accrual posted same day as receipt of payment?). I think that works in theory... not sure if it works in QBO. 

I found this while searching for resources on topic of amortization of loan payments made by a client. What I am really after is some way of importing and/or tracking amortized payback schedule in QBO and only need to update/post something if extra payments are made or the loan is paid back in full.

Thanks for chiming in on this thread, SSWap5922.

Let me share some additional info about your situation. 

You are correct about manually updating the split when categorizing the loan payment that is pulled from the Banking page. As for the app, we're unable to recommend one. 

QuickBooks integrates with over 650 popular business apps. What you can do is search for a keyword in the Apps Center and it'll show you the possible apps. 

Here's how:

1. In QuickBooks Online, go to Apps on the left navigation menu.
2. Type a keyword in the search field.
3. Select the app to see the key benefits. If you decide to use and integrate the app, click on the Get app now button.

You can also visit our QuickBooks Apps page to see the popular apps.

To learn more about the amortization schedule in QuickBooks Online, please feel free to read this article: Does QuickBooks Online have an amortization schedule?.

If you have more questions or need help with other task in your account, please post a reply here. We're always around to help you out some more. Take care and stay safe.

There is no amortization schedule feature in QuickBooks Online.  Neither a straight line amortization (level principle and interest amounts), or a traditional amortization (such as the principle + interest split with a loan payment) where the amounts change each month.

Specifically for loan payments, here are your three options for categorizing the expense:

1.  Create an Expense for each of the future payments.  ( New -> Expense -> Select the correct Payment account -> Set the future date and split the principle and interest amounts )  Now, when the loan payment comes through the bank feed, it will Match to the Expense you already entered.  If you are sure of the future payment amounts on the amortization schedule, this is the way to go.  Just make sure you are matching to the right month's Expense since multiple have been entered.

But as you mentioned, if extra payments are made, or the loan is paid back in full, or the interest rate changes, the proportion of principle to interest inside each payment will now change.  And you now have future expenses on the books that will be incorrect and will not "Match" to the new / changed draft amount.

Side Note: If you purchase an asset and need to amortize the expense (or depreciate the asses), entering future amortized expenses in this manner is the way to go.

2.  Set up a rule to just categorize the whole loan payment (principle and interest, without a split) to the loan's liability account, then at the end of the year make one journal entry to move the total of the interest payment for the year into your Interest Expense account.

3.  Just make the split each month as you currently are.  Either use the amortization schedule, the monthly loan statement, or look up the split amounts on the loan account website to find the principle and interest amounts each month.

A great feature for loan payments would be for QBO to sync to the financial institution and pull the principle and interest amounts and do the split for you.  Bookkeeping automation still has a ways to go.

Would SaasAnt possibly work to create a solution to this problem we all have with Monthly Loan P&I payments?

I would swear that a few months back, a QBO updates webinar stated that soon QBO would be making this functionality available in QBO????   

Hi there, @JKLB. Thank you for joining the thread. Allow me to help share information about your monthly loan payments in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks works with many different third parties like SaasAnt. Although QuickBooks integrates with many parties, we don't know how they handle the transactions. That said, I'd suggest contacting their support team and verifying how they work with QuickBooks.

Also, I'd suggest sending feedback to our product development team. This way, our developer team can look into it and release them since it's 

featured in one of our webinars.

Here's how:

1. Press the Gear icon in the upper right and choose Feedback under profile.
2. It will open a window where you can enter your product suggestions.
3. From there, input how you want the program to work.
4. Click Next to submit it. 

You can track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

Let me share these resources to guide you with your bank transactions in QuickBooks:

• Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online
• Set up bank rules to categorize online banking transactions in QuickBooks Online

I'm just around to help if you have further questions or concerns with QuickBooks. I'm always here to help. Stay safe.